It has never been so easy to make money online from the comfort of your own home, if you know where to start, and how to do it. But, perhaps Pinterest marketing is mentioned the least when it comes to ways to make money online. Last year Pinterest sadly closed their creator rewards scheme. This basically paid people to pin, so you do have to think slightly outside of the box when it comes to making money on this channel.
Pinterest has a whopping 482 million users, yet it’s highly underrated and offers so much potential to those willing to put in some work and reap the benefits. This is not a get rich quick scheme, anything with longevity takes time, but it could create a future of freedom and wealth if you just start today.
As an experienced user of Pinterest who already makes money through the platform, I’ve put together 9 ways you can get started in making money on Pinterest.
9 Ways You Can Make Money On Pinterest In 2024
1.Drive Traffic To A Site With Display Ads
One of the most popular ways to make money from Pinterest is driving traffic to a blog/niche site and monetising with display ads. The way that display ads work is that more eyes on your content = more money.
So, how can you get started? Firstly, you will need to setup a blog (website) on the niche of your choice. If your plan is to make money through Pinterest traffic, you should first check whether your niche is popular and well searched for on Pinterest. Home interiors work incredibly well, car care, not so much. The research stage is key as to whether it’s doable or not.
Once you have your website setup (I recommend WordPress and using a clean, functional theme such as GeneratePress), it’s time to start writing. Conduct keyword research on Google and Pinterest to see what topics you could write about and have low competition (this requires a WHOLE book on how to do this, but these are the basics for now).
Over time your posts will start to gain traction, do not expect anything remarkable for about 6 months. Most people give up by this point, and this is why this strategy is not for everyone, but stick it out and it will pay dividends.
I wouldn’t stick any ads on your site until you are at about 10,000 monthly clicks, you can do this at any point, but you will literally be earning pennies. Google Adsense is a great place to start as it doesn’t have any barriers to entry. Mediavine can be joined once you hit 50,000 monthly sessions and Adthrive at 100,000. There are other ad platforms available, but these are the most popular.
In this time, hopefully you have been building up your presence on Pinterest and driving outbound clicks. Have a look at this post on how to drive more organic traffic to your site from Pinterest. It seems simple in a nutshell, but you will have at least 6 months of hard work ahead of you, and then the rest. BUT, it is one of the best ways to drive traffic which brings longevity to monetisation plans for your site.
In summary, how to get started;
- Pick a niche
- Create a blog/website
- Start writing posts (you’ll need to scale it to have content for Pinterest)
- Build your Pinterest account
- Monetise with display ads once you hit 10,000 monthly sessions
- Watch the money roll in, and just keep writing and pinning
2. Share Affiliate Links
With no barrier to entry, you can start sharing affiliate links on Pinterest and start making money straight away.
Okay, you need to actually be getting some kind of impressions and traction to begin with, but this is virtually one of the easiest and cost free methods to start your Pinterest monetisation journey. Simply get your affiliate link and paste it into the link box when creating your pin. If you are creating video pins, you can also tag these links with Product stickers.
Pinterest don’t allow all affiliate links on the platform. They recommend using rewardStyle links which are the first and largest invitation-only end-to-end content monetisation platform. However, there are other affiliate platforms worth considering including;
You must always disclose affiliate links are being used in the pins so as not to deceive pinners. I would not recommend just solely pinning affiliate links and product images as your account is likely going to be picked up as spam.
3. Brand Collaborations
If you have an established account on Pinterest, brand collaborations are a great way to start making some money. There are a number of ways you can approach this;
Firstly, make sure on your account settings that you have opted in to Branded Content. Once you do this you will be eligible for any opportunities that become available through Pinterest.
Alternatively, go out there and get some campaigns from those dream brands you would love to work with. Make sure you have a media kit ready with your key stats and let them know why you think you’d be a good match for the brand.
There is a paid partnership tool within the app which can be assigned when you are sharing the pin so this is fully disclosed to your audience.
4. Let People Shop Your Pins
If you are in a very visual niche such as fashion or beauty, let people shop those video pins with ease. Pinterest have made it really easy for creators to monetise their content with affiliate links, and this does work best with video pins.
Often we see something our favourite creator posts and immediately need to know the details of everything, so let your audience know! I find this way of including affiliate links more powerful and authentic than simply sharing static product imagery. It’s real, authentic and it’s at the heart of what Pinterest do.
Inspire others, but allow them to leave decided and shop if they want to recreate your look. This method works well for the following niches;
- Beauty
- Fashion
- Hair
- Home interiors
5. Drive E-commerce Sales – Connect A Shopping Feed
If you have an e-commerce store, one of the best ways to drive traffic and sales is by connecting your shopping feed.
It’s easy to setup on WordPress and Shopify stores and it will allow you to connect your shopping feed and become a verified merchant on the platform which adds to your credibility. Pinterest will walk you through this process and tell you what plugins to use.
It will allow people to shop your products directly from Pinterest, tag your products on your pins, run catalogue ad campaigns and appear on 1000s of shoppable surfaces across Pinterest, every day.
Have you ever seen a pin on Pinterest and wanted that exact lamp in the image? By clicking on the Shop icon, this crawls Pinterest and displays 100s of items that look the same as the one featured. This tool is powerful, free and is capturing people with the right search intent which leads to sales.
Even if you don’t actively pin on your account, get your shopping feed connected straight away. It’s free to do and doesn’t take long to complete. To get started, login to your Pinterest account, click Ads > Catalogues and add a new data source.
6. Pinterest Creator Inclusion Fund
Despite Pinterest doing away with their creator rewards programme, their Pinterest creator inclusion fund is very much still ongoing and open for applications when they launch a new fund.
This is part of Pinterest’s initiative which is focused on the growth and success for underrepresented creators. The creator fund is open to those who are part of an underrepresented community, have between 500-10,000 followers and have created pins in the last 30 days. Those selected receive additional support and guidance for making their mark on Pinterest, along with a sizeable grant to support their content on the platform.
In the past, the grants were around the $25k mark, so if you already have a sizeable audience on Pinterest, it’s well worth keeping your eyes peeled for when this reopens to applications.
7. Use Pinterest Ads To Drive More Traffic
Organic traffic from Pinterest is magic stuff as it shows you have established yourself and Pinterest is pushing your content out more. But, if you need a helping hand or really want to scale traffic quickly, Pinterest Ads are a great way to do just that.
The creation of Pinterest Ads are some of the most intuitive in comparison to other platforms. You can simply boost a pin, setup a campaign or use catalogue campaigns if you have a shopping feed setup to your e-commerce store.
Pinterest Ads are a great tool in those early days on the platform, but we still encourage supporting this with organic work. Becoming dependent on ads traffic can stall any organic growth in the long term.
8. Sell Digital Products
If you don’t have an e-commerce business, digital products work really well on Pinterest. Whether you’ve written a downloadable e-book, created journal prompts or baby milestone cards, start making money with your digital products through Pinterest.
Build content around your products to grow your profile and share a series of pins in relation to your digital products. A great way to start driving people through to your site and getting eyes on your paid for products is with a free lead magnet. This encourages people to sign up to a newsletter, giving you access to their data, whilst they get value from you for free.
If you’re stuck for ideas, search ideas on Pinterest to see what people are actually searching for. Alternatively, use AI to generate a handful of ideas for you to help with ideation and setting up your lead magnet.
9. Pin For Businesses
Finally, why not utilise your Pinterest skills and offer your services to businesses and brands who could use your knowledge to drive traffic and product sales to their websites?
Starting out as a Pinterest manager or VA can seem daunting, but there are plenty of great Pinterest help groups on Facebook where you can lean on others for support and learn how to price and plan your time. The Pinterest VA Group on Facebook is a great resource.
It can be an incredibly rewarding job, and it’s one of the reasons we love Pinterest so much. Supporting the business growth of others, whilst doing what we do and love best.
If you’re looking for further help on how to monetise on Pinterest, drop me an email, I love to chat Pinterest! Monetising Pinterest is not an overnight thing, but put the work in now and a year from now you will be glad you started.
